


Restructuring

by stclairvoyant



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alien Space Communists, Beforus, Beforus Ancestors, F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-10
Updated: 2015-01-10
Packaged: 2018-03-07 01:13:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3155306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stclairvoyant/pseuds/stclairvoyant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"No, you <em>ain't</em>." spits Meenah. "You ain't Peixes and I ain't Peixes. Peixes is Imperial power. <em>Peixes</em> is what she is in the newspapers and the statues and the portraits. Not you, Megido, not even <em>me</em>."</p><p>A world of equals falling into ruin, and the women there to witness the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Restructuring

**Author's Note:**

  * For [negativecosine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/negativecosine/gifts).



Even in death, Her Imperious Munificence is everywhere.

The first statue goes up at her funeral. It is monumental, in every way possible: it is a reeling, titanic affair, easily stretching one hundred feet into the sky, right hand raised into the sky in eternal salute, left at the ready with a wrought-iron trident, eyes surveying the Motherland's vast ocean. For all that they can see her body lying in state on the upper deck of the ornate Imperial schooner _Beforan Sun_ , fine-boned and frail with impossible age, the monument renders her with the heavy surety of heroism and youth, all full-framed and riot-eyed as if this were her, as if this had _always_ been her. Comrade Feferi Peixes, Empress-elect of the Popular Beforan Vanguard, General Secretary of the Central Committee, reads the plaque, and no matter how much everyone in attendance might know the lie of the thing nobody dares to say otherwise. When they call her name for the first time, they discard the pretence of populism and give her the name she deserves: Empress Feferi Peixes, First of Her Symbolhight, is what they call her. The crowd of ten thousand salutes with an eerie unanimity.

Beside the new General Secretary—new-minted princeps, first-among-equals, _Empress_ , Meenah always insists, with a peculiar twist of her teeth—stands Empress Dowager Aradia Megido, co-belligerent in the Glorious Popular Revolution and the concupiscent widow of the Munifice. She is old, too, and she stands with her head bowed—whether out of deference or from the slow progression of arthritis, the Empress does not know, nor does she particularly care. When Megido does look up for brief moments during the procession and the viewing, it is only to steal brief, sombre glances at the other old woman's body, whisper-light but weighted down with the baroque vestments of royalty. They will catch fire easily.

When the wake is over, the Party loyalists and the slapdash royalty shuffle off the deck of the ship and back onto the pier so that the burial at sea can begin. Starting with the vessel itself—a wooden, seven-sailed masterpiece every bit the epitome of tradition—the whole event is steeped in ancient custom and institution. It goes like this: the schooner is doused with a thick, resilient coating of oil, and from there it is unmoored from the pier. As it sets out to sea with the gentle push of wind and waves, a well-chosen archeradicator, his true-fire shots without equal, looses a flaming arrow from his bow and strikes the ship, consuming it in a kind of purifying flame. The legend goes that for a true-blooded seafarer, there is no more esteemed way to go; instead of interment in the ground, where insects and worms will decompose a body, and with it all its honour and self-respect, the body can enter paradise all at once, nothing but ash and memory reminding those left on Beforus of those who have died.

The burning vessel sinks below the waves at last, and the crowd turns to their new Empress in lockstep. Lady Megido does not look up, and she does not speak, as Empress Meenah Peixes, Second of Her Symbolhight, takes the stage, and bears witness to the day of her coronation.

 

* * *

 

The statues of Feferi as proud overseer of the oceans, as visionary of the people, are an easy way for Meenah to score easy political points, early on. Who could protest the naming of Her Imperious Munificence Feferi Peixes, a loyal comrade and a selfless leader to her people, a troll who rescued them from the tyranny of the darkest days of the Beforan people and brought them the glory and the prosperity of Empire, as anything short of Architect of Peace or Liberator of the Twelve Nations? Who would doubt that the entrenched bureaucracy of the Republic was anything but a treacherous conspiracy to limit the opportunity of the Beforan people? She has brought them a new era where the national consciousness does not demand the anarchy of one billion voices but the unity of one, where the needs of a people are served through a sacred mouthpiece and a devoted leader. It is self-evident, says Meenah, that such heroism should be remembered, inscribed on every wall, shouted from the peak of every mountain and from the deepest trenches of the Rift's Carbuncle.

But the tumult of succession is not smoothed over so easily. The thought that Meenah could consolidate power so easily, with just a few words of devotion dedicated to her predecessor, fills Aradia with a sick shame. The fledgling Empire sits astride the horns of something of a power-sharing struggle, and nowhere is it more evident than the meetings of the Central Committee and its various subcommittees. For all that the reigning Empress loathes the meetings of the Political Bureau—or further, if she's honest with herself, any of this damnable theatre that the last vestiges of the old Republic are of any use to her whatsoever—she knows that there is a special kind of value to continuity. If nothing else, Meenah thinks, Feferi taught her that there are certain things that must be maintained for a sense of order to remain; burning everything down would rob her of legitimacy, but too little change just switches out the face at the head of the government, and accomplishes nothing. Still, whenever Meenah can summon the willpower to drag herself to the meetings of the Vanguard's political bodies, she leaves furious that they remain entrusted with any kind of power at all. And at the heart of that power is the Empress Dowager.

It is a curious balance that Lady Megido and Empress Meenah alike must strike with each other. On one hand, Meenah must refer to Aradia with the title Meenah herself has devised if she wishes to imbue her ancestor's post-hoc title—to say nothing of her own—with any legitimacy. On the other hand, the formal style, the elevation above others in a society where equality in address and treatment has long been the law of the land—all of this grants a dangerous amount of power to Megido. All the same, Aradia must play the field in reverse.

"Here in attendance, Comrade Meenah Peixes, General Secretary of the Central Committee—" Aradia begins, all icy, razor-edged formality. The meeting has only begun, but the party functionaries sit stock-still already, expressions of discomfort and dismay washing over their faces.

"Your Majesty," Meenah interrupts, words barbed just the same, but with an academic lilt of the tongue that does not come naturally. Here, among the many bureaucrats and party members whose loyalties remain utterly divided until the moment comes where the chips are down, she must abide by certain rules. "I realize that many changes have occurred lately, and that it may be confusing for those of us who until recently held different posts. But we have certain customs, certain rules, certain regulations that no longer hold in our illustrious Imperial age, and other systems of address to account for those changes. The Republic is dead, Lady Megido, and you and I are the inheritors of its grand reincarnation."

Aradia meets the Empress's eyes. Her eyes do not waver, and her body does not move even an inch. "Meeting dismissed," she says, and the empty suits scatter skittishly, all too glad to have an excuse to flee the fast-cooling atmosphere of a meeting between the Empress and the Dowager. The moment the last door shuts, Meenah's voice has dropped the frozen courtesy of company, immediately flaring with indignation.

"You got some _nerve_ carpin' like that, Megido, in _my_ house, in _my_ fuckin' Empire."

" _Your_ Empire, you say, like it was ever anyone's to begin with." Aradia scoffs, finally looks away for a moment. "Feferi demanded change and reform, but this resembles nothing she ever wanted. You've twisted her words to mean whatever you wanted, and what do you have to show for it? Is this what _you_ wanted?"

"You squiddin' me now?" Meenah sighs. "Listen here, chumbucket. You got a ritzy job here, on account a' you bein' the big fish's little minnow and all. Y'ain't gonna last long anyway the way you are, what with the red veins, yanno? I were you, I'd stop bein' so flippin' entidaled about it and clam up, make your life easier. Whatever you wanted outta this shit—you and the big fish's great crusade or whatever—you ain't gonna get it. My advice, take the memories with the gill, and stay out of ofishial business. Peixes ain't a person anemonemore, she means moray than that, to me, to everymoby on this coddamn planet."

"Feferi does _not_ belong to just you, Meenah," Aradia responds, simmering with barely-contained fury. "Peixes is a part of me too. She's me as much as she is anyone else."

"No, you _ain't_." spits Meenah. "You ain't Peixes and I ain't Peixes. Peixes is Imperial power. _Peixes_ is what she is in the newspapers and the statues and the portraits. Not you, Megido, not even _me_."

Aradia says nothing, at first, stunned into silence by something between sadness and rage. The heat in her cheeks turns ice-cold. "She will never be the statues that you've built," she says, and leaves the room.

 

* * *

 

In the weeks after Meenah's assumption of power, the name of the Beforan capital quickly fades to irrelevance. Who would utter its pedestrian name when the alternative would call to mind the heroic saviour of the people? No less than St. Feferi for the centre of the Empire, to say nothing of the dozens of streets and squares in other cities that would cast aside 'Main Square' and 'Market Street' for the indisputable prestige of 'Peixes Place.' And at the corner or the end of all of those streets and squares, an imposing statue of her casts a benevolent, watchful eye—she is there for the benefit of her people, after all.

But the people could be forgiven for having _some_ mistaken ideas. The Great Genius of Imperium had such complex ideas on the improvement of society, it is only natural that some might misinterpret ideas, that they might use words without fully understanding the implications or the consequences of them. In the early days, this kind of debate over the precise meaning of the Eternal Empress's words was tolerated, in the interest of developing a kind of consensus. For all the political tumult that has occurred, and for all Meenah has done her best to consolidate power in the hands of a smaller and smaller group, the expectation among the masses remains that the Empress will seek the advice on the foremost minds in the nation to come to a decision. Once again, Meenah runs into a problem named Aradia Megido—this time on the philosophical interpretation on Feferi's revolutionary development of a system she termed "culling."

"Here in attendance, Comrade Meenah Peixes—" Aradia begins, and when Meenah shoots her another withering look, she continues, voice thick with sarcasm. "—Empress-elect of the Popular Beforan Vanguard, Second of Her Symbolhight, and General Secretary of the Central Committee."

"Thank you, your Majesty," Meenah replies. As usual, they are all venom, the both of them. "Our agenda today for this meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Empire pertains to the refinement of a policy first implemented by our prior Empress Feferi Peixes—"

"Empress- _elect_ Feferi Peixes," Aradia interjects.

"—Empress- _elect_ Feferi Peixes, General Secretary of the Central Committee, and so on, are you _satisfied_ , Lady Megido?" Meenah hisses, but she does not stop for a response, either. "The refinement of the policy of culling, first implemented by the late partner of Her Majesty the Empress Dowager Aradia Megido, however one wishes to list her assortment of titles and honours."

Aradia rolls her eyes. As the arguments between them grow tenser, Meenah—without fail—resorts to the language of legalism and royalty. Before long, she is sure that Meenah will be rattling off an even more absurd series of honours, starting with 'Her Most Imperial and Apostolic Majesty the Empress Dowager of All the Beforii.' She twirls the pencil in her hand and raises her voice again. "Perfectly satisfied, my lady. Are we going to discuss the agenda, or would you like to grant everyone here an additional title for the mere courtesy of attending? According to my dossier, there are forty-three duchies yet to be parcelled out."

"I think we can move along and begin discussing the matter at hand." Meenah coughs and pulls out a copy of _The Culling Manifesto_. "The late Empress published a great deal of work on a variety of questions aimed at resolving a constant concern in our society: the fundamental imbalances—in strength, lifespan, and so on—between the sea-trolls, the coldbloods and the warmbloods. And so she came to a method by which she attempted to remedy it, that is to say, culling."

There's a huff from Aradia's corner of the room. "Is there a problem, Lady Megido?" Meenah asks. "If I'm not mistaken, your prestigious station is the product of Her Majesty's personal endeavours in culling, isn't that true?"

Aradia makes a noise of sullen acknowledgement, but when she speaks it is with the same nasty edge. "Do you mean to suggest that my station is not the product of my own merit, your Majesty?"

"On the contrary. In fact, one of Her Majesty's final regrets, conveyed to me through _personal correspondence_ ," —Aradia must will herself, here, not to interrupt with an impassioned cry of 'hoofbeastshit'— "was that the system of culling she instituted would ignore the individual merits of those as gifted as you, in favour of labelling you, your abilities, and your life as lacking or wanting. It would demand that those of cold blood and aquatic pedigree, regardless of their flaws, would be expected to provide assistance, no matter how supernumerary it might be, to even the most able of maroon or golden hue."

"That is _not_ what she believed."

Meenah is hardly listening anymore. "I hope you would agree that this is beyond simply a fundamental injustice, but it is a hindrance to the continued existence of society! It is a black mark on the most prosperous and august Empire. And together with the Central Committee, I would like to amend the Imperial Culling Statutes to reflect the society we have wished to foster—the late Empress and myself, alike—a society that rewards those who provide most to the existence, the welfare, and the glory of Beforus and its people. No longer will culling be a method of rewarding the weak, the sickly, the unfit trolls who leach valuable time and energy from the needs of Imperium. Culling shall be a way to eliminate these drains, and a way to elevate the Beforan Empire to heights never before seen! Now," she says, grin unfolding into a rich roil, "I call for a vote."

The ministers of the Central Committee look around nervously, loyalties torn and tested in this moment as in no other way before.

For a moment, a pristine silence comes over the chamber. The chatter of the committee fades away as all eyes focus on Her Majesty the Empress Dowager Aradia Megido slowly drawing a pair of thin white wands on the Empress herself, Meenah Peixes, Second of Her Symbolhight, General Secretary of the Central Committee. It fills them with a breathy shock to see this kind of blatant display of aggression anywhere in their serene Empire, let alone in the halls of a Central Committee meeting.

A wicked white lash of light screams across the room, and the silence breaks. The podium splinters into a million pieces, and the next thing anyone knows there is the Empress, just moments before at the podium, with her trident at the neck of the Dowager.

This time it is Meenah who says it. "Meeting dismissed."

 

* * *

 

The Central Committee passes the amendment to the Imperial Culling Statutes unanimously.

 

* * *

 

On the outskirts of the metropolis—that anyone would call it _Saint Feferi_ , Aradia thinks, with an exaggerated roll of her eyes—an army of sympathizers gather to hear the Dowager speak. Her exile has been formalized in almost every way, now; Meenah's publication of _"Left-Wing" Culling: A Larval Disorder_ has fractured the opposition and banished it from the prestige of discussion in the halls of the Central Committee, and the Cardinal Movement—taking its name from the rich red blood hue soon to be classified as a "pathological mutation" by the Empire—has been outlawed as "a blasphemy against the Beforan people" and "a public denigration of the Empire and its august government," and what really frightens Aradia is that these actions do not hold a candle to what the Empress is authorizing sub rosa.

When Aradia speaks to the Cardinal loyalists, once-mighty leaders and advisors and thinkers who have cast aside their prestige (or had it cast aside for them) for the sake of opposition to a regime that has stripped away first their rights and freedoms, bit by bit, and then all pretence thereof, they listen to her in a way few listen, like there's this magnetic field that draws them to her and her words and her ideas. It's not for any kind of belief that together they can overcome the rule of the Empress; that, perhaps, is the most notable thing about it all. When they collect in the silence of the suburbs, they are under no illusions about the inevitable fate that awaits each one. None of them mention the future—they haven't since Meenah's ascent to the throne—and instead they comfort themselves with the solidarity of common memories and ideology; fond recollections of Feferi's consensus rule passed around like tokens at the table. And when Aradia (just another Comrade, here—there's no talk of Dowager Empress or similar royal nonsense, and at best she's considered rightful General Secretary) reminisces on her time together with Feferi, they all hush with a muted awe—both in remembrance of a better time, and a quiet despair that things could have changed so much for the worse so quickly.

The Cardinal Movement has done its best, says Aradia, to declare its oppositions to the policies of the Empire through political means, to hold votes in the Political Bureau, and to raise popular awareness to the consequences of the Empress's reforms, even as it has been increasingly marginalized from positions of power; first expelled from the Political Bureau, then from the Central Committee, and subsequently from the entire party, before being criminalized completely. The time has already come and gone for opposition in the form of words, and that taking up arms would mean certain death for them all. So she calls all her friends and comrades and remaining old-guard revolutionaries and she tells them that there remains little left to do but to toe the line before the Empress, to recant their views publicly for the sake of their own lives, for the sake of a future where dissidents would still remain among the ranks of the Imperial Guard.

And then she speaks again, to the little that remains of this red army of hers, of a world she once knew, of the troll she once knew who governed it with a fair hand. How her descendants, poisoned by a well of envy, would twist her words to suit their own purposes, how they would speak of culling as population containment instead of population improvement, and how the troll she knew would not—would _never_ —be those words. She calls on those that remain to remember the Left Opposition, to remember the Cardinal Movement, and to remember Feferi Peixes.

When her comrades leave the room, they do as she says. They recant and they remember, and not a word is whispered further, and when Meenah asks them, they will remember Aradia's Feferi just as they speak of Meenah's; they will say the right things, of the woman strong enough to tear down the walls of a nation and replace them with her own, with a voice that led a generation from a collection of squabbling societies into a unified people and a pusher that pumped strong enough for them all, bleeding each and every colour for her country, and they'll mean it, too, but speaking is easy, and meaning is hard.

Not a single one survives the Great Purge.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "Feferi as Beforan Empress? Lots of worldbuilding and weird troll politik- how did Feferi shape Beforus and did she know about Meenah and did they ever meet/interact, give me lots of rich detail about a no-Game-AU Beforus pretty pretty please."
> 
> This story shifted a bit from the original request as I wrote it, from being about Feferi shaping the intricate troll politics of Beforus, into more of a retrospective on the goals of Feferi and a sort of alternate universe where Meenah comes to create the Alternia we recognize out of the ashes of Beforus. I hope this is okay, though! It was an interesting opportunity to work with characters I hadn't used much before, and I definitely had fun writing it.


End file.
